


Through A (Looking) Glass, Darkly

by aformofmotion



Series: Beyond The Help Of Falling Stars [1]
Category: Alice (2009), Sanctuary (TV), Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 09:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2223981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aformofmotion/pseuds/aformofmotion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An answer to the question "Where was Sarah Jane during <i>Children of Earth</i>?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_I really miss Sarah Jane_ , Maria thought, clinging to the back of the beast. One of her hands held one of the spikes that ran down it's back, the other held onto it's bumpy gray hide. _And Luke and Clyde_ , she mentally added a minute later.   
  
"Would you _calm down!_ " she screamed, knowing it was useless. The creature would wear itself out eventually, all she had to do was stay with it until it did and hope it didn't head for any populated areas.  It was proving to be harder than expected.   
  
The creature was too big and she was too close now to see much more of it than what was right there in front of her face. That was essentially a gray blur, since it's motion was causing her head to knock around too much to see straight. As if it might help, she squeezed her eyes shut and tucked her head closer to it's body, visualizing the whole thing the way she'd seen it on the security video.   
  
It looked something like a dinosaur, though it was the strangest dinosaur she'd ever seen. It's back legs and haunches were nearly twice the size of it's front legs and shoulders, although it had been traveling on all four. She suspected it was equally capable of walking upright. There'd been three wicked looking claws on each leg. It had a long tail, which dragged on the ground behind it. It's neck was long, probably longer than the tail, and it's head seemed strangely small in proportion to the rest of it's body. When it roared at the camera she'd been able to see that it's head was made of mostly mouth, which was filled with large, flat teeth that made it look bucktoothed. It's pointed tongue seemed to shoot straight out from the center of it's mouth. Harder to see on the camera had been the wings, tiny and tattered looking and probably useless for flying. Straight down it's back were a collection of spikes, ranging from four to seven inches long, and white in contrast to the green-gray of it's hide. The spikes continued part of the way up it's neck, although those are shorter, perhaps only an inch or two. It's eyes stick out from the side of it's head and looked like they could swivel about 180 degrees. The eyes seem to be the same colour and texture as the hide, with only a small black pupil, and above them it had antennae that waved wildly in the air.   
  
Nothing she could think of that would help her.   
  
Her footing slipped and the hand on it's hide scrambled to keep purchase. She felt her shoulder and elbow pop as the other arm took her whole weight. The creature reared back and her unsecured arm and legs flailed in the air. Something sharp and heavy hit her ankle, causing her to spin. She saw the thing that had hit her leg -- one of the antennae -- glistening with her blood.   
  
Without waiting for the sheer stupidity of the plan or the pain of the cut to sink in, she let go of the spike and grabbed onto the antenna with both hands. For a while she thought her arms might break as it tossed it's head from side to side, trying to throw her off, and for a while after that she dangled precariously over it's mouth, working to keep her legs above it's teeth. Eventually her body thudded against the back of it's neck and she dug her heels in, squeezing her knees together like she was riding a horse. Her injured ankle protested loudly, but she ignored it, swallowing a shout of pain. The last thing she needed was to make loud, unnecessary noises by the creature's head; it was angry enough already. As soon as she was sure she was stable, she released the antenna and grabbed onto the nearest lumps of hide.   
  
"Oh, don't you _dare_ ," she muttered, seeing the wall coming at her just before she was slammed painfully into it. The breath was knocked right out of her, but she managed to hold on while the creature blinked and shook it's head. She wasn't so lucky the second time, her vision going gray for a few seconds, just long enough for her fingers to go slack and her body to slump against the building it had slammed her into.   
  
"That went well," she said woozily, picking herself up off the ground. She held onto the wall for support and watched the creature get it's bearings. "Okay. Time for plan B."   
  
She grimaced, fumbling in her pocket for the stun gun that had been given to her by a Thyklian merchant as a reward for her assistance a few months before. She hated to use it because it wasn't callibrated for non-Thyklian life and had an unfortunate three in ten chance of leaving it's target crispy rather than stunned. But now it was down to using the stunner or losing the creature in the city. She couldn't let it get away.   
  
Her fingers were slow and clumsy, they didn't want to follow her commands. The way her eyes were working after that last blow, she'd never be able to aim the stunner from this range, let alone fire it.   
  
Wonderful.   
  
She spat out a mouthful of blood and, after prodding her teeth with her tongue to be sure none of them were loose, she bit the stunner and lurched off after the creature. Her injured leg kept trying to give out on her, but she forced it to keep working.   
  
_Helping Sarah Jane never hurt this much,_ she thought. She was pretty sure there were tears streaming from her eyes, which would explain the blurriness and be an appropriate response to the beating she'd been taking. She shook her head to clear her vision and get a fix on the creature's location, and ended up with a throbbing headache for her trouble. _I never got a concussion from the Slitheen._   
  
The creature was ahead of her and moving, but not quickly and she was gaining on it despite the limp. When she was sure she had a clear path she took a flying leap and grabbed onto whatever bit of the creature she she could reach. Her hand grazed one of the spikes and she pulled it back quickly, shifting into a position she could sustain one handed. She wiped the blood onto her jeans, grabbed the gun out of her teeth, and shoved the discharge end into the beast's side.   
  
It howled, bucking in an attempt to get rid of her.   
  
"Shut up, you're going to attract attention," she said. "I really, really hope you don't microwave." She fired twice in rapid succession, directly into it's skin.   
  
The creature jerked and she let herself fall free of it's mass. It snarled angrily, a different sort of sound from the strange inhaling roars it had been making, but didn't fall down unconscious the way she'd expected.   
  
She managed to lever herself up into a sitting position and saw it still moving sluggishly away. She brought the gun up slowly, willing away the dizziness that fractured her vision, and shot it one more time. Her remaining arm gave out of at the same time the creature slumped, giving out one last low wail. She stared up at the sky, feeling the spin of the Earth wash over her. She remained still until the spinning of her vision slowed to a more managable level, then slid the stun gun back into her pocket and began gingerly testing her limbs. She felt bruised and stiff everywhere, but other than the shallow cut in the palm of her hand and the deeper one in her injured leg, which was becoming worryingly numb, she didn't have any serious injuries.   
  
She forced herself back up to her feet; nothing said incompetant quite like passing out before securing the thing you were chasing. She made her way slowly over to it's head and touched one of the eyes. There was no response, so she touched the nearest antenna -- not the one that had whipped her leg -- and also received no response. "Good. Okay." She dropped her bag on the ground next to it and pull out a length of rope. Then she swayed on her feet and turned her head. "You've been watching me for at least five minutes," she called. "You could offer to help."   
  
Without waiting for a response, she knelt next to the creature's front legs and began lashing them together.   
  
"My name is Maria Jackson," she added after a minute.   
  
"Helen Magnus."   
  
"Sanctuary Network," Maria said, nodding. "I didn't realize you were English."   
  
"I am. Henry, Kate." From the corner of her eye she saw two more figures step out of the shadows. "Secure the creature. Maria, are you aware that your leg is bleeding?"   
  
"Yeah, and my hand." She let Henry take the rope from her and turned her palm up to show Helen. "See? And I think I might have a concussion."   
  
"You took quite a beating," Helen said. She helped Maria to her feet and lead her away from the creature. "Come on. We'll take you back with us, and then I think you and I are going to have a chat."   
  
"About why I know who you are," she said, nodding. "Okay. Oh... that'll be the blood loss kicking in. I think I'm going to pass out now. I hope you don't mind." Helen caught her as she fell backwards into a murky expanse. "Hope you're as friendly as you seem," she mumbled. "Or I'm in real trouble."   
  
She thought she heard Helen speaking in response, but she couldn't make the sounds into words.   
  
  
  
Clyde picked up a blue-green crystal sphere and tossed it from hand to hand as he paced around the attic, waiting for Luke to finish whatever it was he was doing with his laptop.   
  
"Come on, Luke," he whined. "Hurry it up."   
  
"You can go," Luke said, not bothering to look up. "I'll catch up."   
  
"Nuh-uh, no way. I leave and you're likely to never see daylight again. I know how you are." He waited quietly for about thirty seconds. "What's so fascinating about a bunch of numbers on a screen, anyway?"   
  
"It's not the numbers, Clyde, it's what they represent. Do you want me to try to explain it to you?"   
  
"No, I want you to hurry." He spun the sphere on his fingertips. "What is this thing?"   
  
Luke looked up. "I have no idea." His attention went back to the laptop.   
  
Clyde sighed. "Rani's probably already there, wondering what's taking us so long."   
  
"Just another minute," Luke said. "I'm almost ready."   
  
"Promise?"   
  
"Promise." He glanced up at Clyde and smiled. "Okay?"   
  
"Fine," he said gruffly, looking away and ignoring the butterflies that had suddenly taken up residence inside of his stomach. It was a good thing Luke was basically oblivious to normal social cues, this thing he had for the other boy was getting ridiculous.   
  
Footsteps on the stairs stopped him from dwelling on it and he set the sphere down on the table before Sarah Jane saw him playing with it.   
  
"Oh, hello boys," Sarah Jane said. "I didn't realize you were still here."   
  
"We won't be for much longer," Clyde said. "Right, Luke?"   
  
"Right." He closed the laptop and stood up. "We can go now."   
  
" _Finally_ ," Clyde said. He clapped Luke on the shoulder and pushed him gently toward the door, bumping the table as he went. "See you, Sarah Jane."   
  
She waved. "Goodbye, boys. Have a nice time."   
  
"Oh, we will."   
  
Just then the sphere Clyde had been tossing rolled toward the edge of the table and teetered over, shattering on the floor.   
  
"Uh-oh," Luke said.   
  
The world splintered around them and fell away. Clyde felt himself being tossed about like a ragdoll until the motion became less rough and more circular, spinning. When it had slowed to almost nothing he risked opening his eyes a slit. He took the fact that there was no blinding pain as a good sign and sat up to look around.   
  
He was in a field of high grass, intersperced with bushes that were bigger than he was. There was a treeline enclosing the field and all the trees were enormous. He couldn't see anyone else.   
  
"Lu-" He stopped and cleared his throat. "Luke? Sarah Jane?"   
  
"Here," Sarah Jane called, head popping up above the grass as she sat up.   
  
"And here," said Luke from his other side. "What happened?"   
  
"I'm not sure." He dragged Luke to his feet and they walked over to Sarah Jane. "Last thing I remember, we were on our way out the door. Then the world exploded and I woke up here."   
  
"Same here," said Luke. "Oh, but I saw you run into the table that crystal thing was on."   
  
"The Tandellan crystal?" Sarah Jane asked sharply.   
  
"Maybe. Is that the blue-green one?"   
  
"Yes. It shouldn't have done _this_ unless it was activated. Was one of you boys playing with it?"   
  
"Um..."   
  
"Clyde," she said exasperatedly.   
  
"I only picked it up," he protested. "I didn't even _do_ anything with it."   
  
"Tandellan crystal activates upon exposure to specific amino acid chains found only in the tissues of sentient species."   
  
Clyde looked to Luke for a translation.   
  
"Touching it activates it."   
  
"Oh," he said sheepishly. "Sorry."   
  
"What's done is done," Sarah Jane said. "No use dwelling on it."   
  
"What does Tandellan crystal do?" Luke asked.   
  
"It's a teleportation aid, apparently. It's meant to be used in conjunction with a transmat circuit. I've never heard of one working on it's own before."   
  
"Of course not." Clyde rolled his eyes.   
  
"What do we do?"   
  
"The only thing we can," Sarah Jane said. "We walk until we find civilization and hope we haven't been transported too far from home."   
  
  
  
Helen sat beside Maria's bedside, idly flipping through the folder of research she'd put together. All of Maria Jackson's background information in her hands and she couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. Good grades in school, parents divorced, moved to America because of her father's job. Nothing to explain her obvious experience with strange and unusual creatures, nor the strange device she'd used to render the one in the alley unconscious.   
  
Maria made a small sleepy noise and turned her head.   
  
Helen set the file aside and offered her a glass of water, holding the straw until Maria indicated that she was finished.   
  
"Hello."   
  
"Hi," Maria said, waving with the fingers of her good hand.   
  
"Do you remember what happened?"   
  
"I knocked the creature out, but it beat me up pretty bad in the process. And you lot were no help at all, watching from the shadows," she added accusingly.   
  
"We would have intervened had you been unable to handle it, but you seemed to be doing quite well."   
  
"Yeah, right until the end." She shook her head. "I'm still not used to working on my own."   
  
"Torchwood?" Helen guessed, the only overseas institution which both handled the right kind of cases and wouldn't have publicly accessable records.   
  
Maria made a face. "Yeah, right. Too many guns, Sarah Jane said."   
  
"Ah. And this Sarah Jane, then, she was your boss?"   
  
"She was my _friend_ ." She pushed herself into a sitting position and checked her pockets. "Where's my stunner?"   
  
Helen picked it up off the end table and passed it to her. "Quite an interesting device. Where did you get it?"   
  
"From an alien. Where am I?"   
  
"In the Sanctuary. How do you feel?"   
  
"Better. How bad was it?"   
  
"Six stitches in your legs, two in your hand. You're very lucky."   
  
"Yeah, I feel lucky. Thank you, by the way."   
  
"You're very welcome." She held out her hand. "I introduced myself in the  alley but it was rather busy. Doctor Helen Magnus."   
  
"I know," Maria said, shaking her hand. "I did my research. It's hard to find information about the Sanctuary Network, but it's not impossible. I was hoping I'd run into you. Under slightly less embarassing circumstances."   
  
"If you could find that information, you could have come to the front door."   
  
"And I would have, eventually. Trust me, this is not the first impression I wanted to make."   
  
"You took the creature down without injuring it."   
  
"And then I passed out like an idiot." She rolled her eyes, picking at the blanket. "This bedridden thing is all kinds of impressive, right?"   
  
"Maria," Helen said. "You passed out because you lost almost two pints of blood, ignoring a gaping wound that barely even slowed you down. If you wanted to impress me, I'd say you suceeded."   
  
She blushed. "Good. What was that thing, anyway?"   
  
"We don't know yet. I've never seen anything like it." She stood up to check Maria's IVs, then began disconnecting them. "Is this the sort of thing you used to do with your friend Sarah Jane?"   
  
Maria nodded. "And Luke and Clyde. But we never got anything that dangerous. I never needed stitches before."   
  
"Having back up generally helps," Helen agreed. "Maybe you should find a new team to work with."   
  
"What do you think I was trying to impress you for?"   
  
Helen hid a smile. "Ah. I thought that might be it."   
  
"Which means?"   
  
"Which means I'll think about it."   
  
The speaker on the wall squawked for attention and a second later Henry's voice came through. "Boss, you better come down here. There's a couple at the door who claim to know what that thing we brought in is. It's all kinds of crazy."   
  
Helen crossed the room and hit the intercom button. "All right, Henry, I'll be right down." She looked at Maria. "Would you like to come along?"   
  
Maria glanced down the hospital bed at her leg. "Can I?"   
  
She nodded. "You shouldn't be walking on it yet, but I can get you a wheelchair."   
  
  
  
Within minutes they were underway, and came up the hallway just in time to hear Henry ask, "How'd you find us anyway?"   
  
"We didn't," a woman's voice said after a moment. "We just followed you from the alley."   
  
"Discreetly," a man's voice added.   
  
"The girl who was injured, is she okay?"   
  
"I'm fine," Maria said as they came around the corner. "Well, mostly, anyway."   
  
The woman, who was only a few years older than Maria, gasped.   
  
"It looks worse than it is." Helen said.   
  
"Boss, this is Alice Hamilton and David..." He trailed off, waiting for one of them to fill in the blank.   
  
"Hello," Hatter said, waving.   
  
Maria waved back.   
  
"Pleased to meet you," Helen said, shaking both of their heads. "I'm Helen Magnus and this is Maria Jackson. You've already met Henry. I'm told you have information regarding the creature we brought in today."   
  
"The jabberwock," Alice said. "Is it still here?"   
  
"It is."   
  
"Jabberwock?" Maria asked. "Like in _Alice in Wonderland?_ "   
  
" _Through the Looking Glass,_ actually," Alice corrected. "But yes."   
  
"But that's just a story."   
  
"Not so much," she said dryly.   
  
"Less than a story," Helen said. "Just a few lines of verse. But an astounding amount of fiction finds it's basis in reality."   
  
"True," Hatter said. "Even truer than you lot realise. Your brains see into the most amazing places."   
  
Alice elbowed him in the ribs. "David!"   
  
"What? It's true. Half your flights of fancy are things that actually happened _somewhe-_ ow! Alice!"   
  
"Don't get distracted, we're here for a reason."   
  
"Yeah, I remember. I'm the one who saw the news report."   
  
"News report?" Henry groaned.   
  
"Supress that," Helen said. "Quickly."   
  
"On it." He took off down the hallway at a moderate jog.   
  
"So what you're saying," Maria said, "is that _Alice in Wonderland_ actually happened."   
  
"Something like that."   
  
"And the thing that sliced me up is a jabberwock."   
  
"Exactly," he said, beaming at Alice. "And you said no one would believe us."   
  
"I guess I underestimated how much weirdness is in the world. Again."   
  
"Are we to assume it came from a real Wonderland, then?" Helen asked.   
  
"Through a real Looking Glass, yes. You lot catch on right quick, don'tcha?"   
  
"We try."   
  
"Do you know where it is?"   
  
"We know where it was last time."   
  
"Last time?" Maria asked. "You mean this has happened _before?_ "   
  
"Losing a jabberwock through it? Thankfully no. I'm not even sure how that happened. No, traffic through the Looking Glass has been decidedly one way, and it's not that way." He shook his head. "And anyway, that was supposed to have stopped a long ways back."   
  
"Yeah," Alice said vehemently.   
  
He reached out and took her hand, but didn't look away from Helen as he spoke. "If it's opened in the same place as last time, we can secure it and take the jabberwock through no problem. I'll even throw in a guided tour, if King Jack'll let me."   
  
"You're from there," Maria said.   
  
"I am." He gave a little bow and tipped his hat.   
  
"You look just like us."   
  
"You got it backwards, sweetheart. We've been around way longer than you have."   
  
"No obvious physiological differences at all," Helen said, looking him over. "Fascinating."   
  
"Yes, very interesting," Alice interrupted. "If you're done ogling my boyfriend, could we go back to talking about the jabberwock?"   
  
"Of course, my apologies. What if this Looking Glass isn't where you expect it to be?"   
  
"Then we'll have to find it. But don't worry, you can leave that bit to me. Given enough time, I'll always be able to find my way back home." Alice elbowed him again. "Sorry. Find my way back to Wonderland."   
  
"Better," she murmured.   
  
"How?"   
  
Hatter shrugged. "I don't know, call it instinct. All I know is, if there's a Looking Glass, I'll find it."   
  
"So you can go back any time," Alice said.   
  
"Well, yeah, if the Looking Glass is open-" He caught the look on her face. "But I wouldn't. I wouldn't, Alice, really. Come on, trust me. Alice. I wouldn't, I won't." She nodded and he relaxed just a fraction. "Okay. Okay, good. Let's go secure the Looking Glass and put this all behind us."   
  
"Excellent idea," Helen said. "I'll drive."   
  
"What about me?" Maria asked.   
  
"You should lay back down and focus on letting your leg heal. Maybe call your father, he must be worried sick."   
  
"Nah, he thinks I'm staying with... fine. Whatever. I'll call him."   
  
"Good." She lead Alice and Hatter back toward the door. "Tell me more about your Wonderland."   
  
  
  
_Knock, knock._   
  
Henry glanced up from testing the bindings on the jabberwocks back limbs. Maria waved at him through the glass.   
  
"Open the door," she said.   
  
He made a non-commital noise, moving on to check the bindings on it's front legs. "How'd you even know I was down here?"   
  
"One of my best friends is a super computer. I heard the phone call ordering you to move the jabberwock."   
  
"Impressive. You'll have to introduce me to this supercomputer sometime."   
  
"Sure. His name's Mr. Smith, he's pretty friendly. Now, let me in."   
  
"I thought the doc told you to go lay down."   
  
"She's not the boss of me yet. Come on, I can help."   
  
"How old are you, anyway?"   
  
"Fifteen. Not that it matters, since I have experience and I'm here."   
  
He looked up, startled, and walked over to the glass to look at her. "You're just a kid."   
  
"I'm not _just_ anything." One of the jabberwocks eyes swivelled in their direction. "Henry."   
  
"What?"   
  
She pointed. "That."   
  
The jabberwock lifted it's head of the ground and swung it, narrowly missing Henry as he leapt into a corner just out of it's reach.   
  
"Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap."   
  
"You can say that again," she muttered, pushing herself out of the chair. Slightly unbalanced by being able to use only the one leg, she swayed a bit and fumbled for the stun gun before hopping over to the door.   
  
The jabberwock roared, thrashing angrily. It's tail hit the wall and caused it to spin, bringing it's head into range of Henry's corner. Henry snarled back at it, getting ready shift into his, for lack of a better term, wolf form.   
  
"Don't even think about it," Maria said, shoving the door open at just the right time to hit it in the eye as it lunged. She aimed the stunner at it and spared a glance back at Henry while it was shaking off the blow. "Either one of you. You all right?"   
  
"Um."   
  
"Right." The jabberwock hadn't lunged and was eyeing the stunner warily; it let out a low whining sound when her attention turned back to it. "Does that mean you recognize me? Let's go with yes." She leaned against the door, letting it take the weight her injured leg couldn't. "This is going well so far," she commented.   
  
"What are you doing?" Henry asked.   
  
"Improvising. Communicating. Stopping it from having you for a nice appetizer. Take your pick. You can say thanks any time," she added.   
  
"And what's to stop it from eating us _both?_ "   
  
"Well the stunner seems to be working for now." She waved the stun gun vaguely and the jabberwock tilted it's head. "You can sit right down or I'll zap you. Understand?"   
  
It just looked at her.   
  
"You want to give it a try?" she asked.   
  
"Why not. _Down_ ," he growled, just a touch of the wolf in his voice.   
  
Very slowly, the jabberwock lowered it's head to the ground.   
  
"Cool," Maria said. "You can give the orders and I'll point the stun gun. I think we're getting somewhere."   
  
After a teensy bit of trial and error getting the jabberwock unbound and Maria back in the wheelchair, they  managed to work out a system that worked. Maria sat in the wheelchair with the stunner aimed at the jabberwock, while Henry pushed her and growled orders at it. In that way, they marched the jabberwock down to the van under it's own power.   
  
"What was that you were saying about me being just a kid?" Maria asked after it was shut it, pocketing the stun gun.   
  
"Yeah, okay," he said, waving his hand. "Thanks, by the way, for saving my skin back there. How'd you know what I was gonna do?"   
  
"I read your file. Well, the cliffnotes version. Wanted to know what I was jumping into. It's pretty cool."   
  
"You think so?"   
  
"Definitely." She grinned at him, wheeling herself over to the door of the van. "You do know this means you have to take me with you to the Looking Glass."   
  
"What? Uh-uh, no way, you can't even walk."   
  
"I can so walk, I just shouldn't."   
  
"Really shouldn't."   
  
"So I'll stay in the wheelchair. I chased it, I caught it, if you think you're taking it back without me you've got another thing coming. Oh, and _you_ can't control it without me and my stunner, so there's that."   
  
"Magnus-" Henry started.   
  
"Can yell at me later. You can tell her I threatened to shoot you in the head if you want. Now, are you going to help me get in or not?"


	2. Chapter 2

The alley was already secured by the time they got there. Will was standing at one entrance, Kate at the other, with the Big Guy in the middle with Magnus, Alice, and David.   
  
"What's he?" Maria asked, nodding at the Big Guy.   
  
Henry looked at her sideways. "You didn't read his file?"   
  
"He didn't have one. At least, not that Mr. Smith could get at without being noticed. I'm guessing that's the way it is for anyone who can't pass for human."   
  
"That's a good guess." He reached behind his seat and handed her his laptop case. "Hold onto this for me. If the doc doesn't have our heads, I'll let you read some of it later."   
  
"Cool." She smiled, tucking the strap of the case around her neck. "I called my dad," she called out the window, waiting for Henry to bring the wheelchair around. "Told him I was staying over at a friends house. Thank you," she added when Henry helped her out of the van.   
  
Helen raised an eyebrow at him.   
  
"Don't be mad at Henry," Maria said. "I made him let me come with him." She wheeled herself around to the back of the van and pulled out the stun gun, aiming it at the doors. "I'm ready whenever you are."   
  
"It looks like you two are getting along quite well," Helen observed.   
  
"Oh, yeah," Henry said. "We had plenty of time to bond over not getting eaten together."   
  
"And work out a way to control the jabberwock," Maria added.   
  
"Let's hope the ride over didn't freak it out too much."   
  
"Way to jinx it," Maria said, rolling her eyes.   
  
"Oops. Sorry. Boss, you ready for us to let it out?"   
  
"Wait just a minute." She took a few steps back toward Alice and Hatter. They exchanged a few words too low for Maria to hear, then the couple turned and stepped through the mirror that was propped against the wall -- the Looking Glass, Maria presumed. Helen came back over to the van. "They're going to tell the technicians on the other side to expect us."   
  
"Good idea," Henry said, yanking the van door open and jumping out of the way as the jabberwock rushed out. " _Down._ "   
  
"Fascinating," Helen said.   
  
"Looks like our training didn't all wear off after all," Maria said a second later.   
  
"Now who's jinxing it?" he muttered, taking his place behind her wheelchair. They managed to get it as far as the entrance to the Looking Glass. "I think I've discovered a flaw in our plan."   
  
"I see it too."   
  
The Looking Glass was in a frame, and had a rather large lip. The sort that would have been difficult enough to get a wheelchair over even without the added danger of a looming jabberwock.   
  
"Any more improvision up your sleeve?"   
  
"Gimme a minute. Okay. Yeah." She reached up and put the stun gun in his hand, making sure his thumb was on the trigger. "Squeeze that to fire it if you have to."   
  
"What are you going to do?"   
  
"Something that's probably really dumb." She pushed herself out of the wheelchair and hopped on her good leg into the Looking Glass.   
  
  
  
On the other side she wobbled until Alice caught her arm and helped her move out of the way. "Thanks."   
  
She looked around the entrance hall, the first bit of Wonderland she'd ever laid eyes on. The Looking Glass was prominant, taking up the entire back wall. There were bits and bobs of technology strewn around it and two men dressed up in oddly yellow suits and white lab coats. Those would be the technicians, obviously.   
  
Hall might have been too small a word for the entrance to the world. The place was more like an enormous room, with a very high ceiling and no furniture. It was longer than it was wide, but that wasn't really saying much. It wasn't by a lot, anyway, just enough that you could tell. The walls were white, and bare of any decoration; so was the floor. There was a door on the wall opposite the Looking Glass, a big, solid thing bigger than any door she'd ever seen before.   
  
"Jack's redecorated a bit since we left," Hatter said, bouncing on his heels. "I can't say I like it."   
  
"You wouldn't," Alice said. "You never liked _anything_ Jack did."   
  
"That's... okay, that's _almost_ true."   
  
Maria tuned their bickering out when Henry stumbled backwards out of the Looking Glass, followed immediately by the jabberwock. The technicians, despite the forewarning they had had, started and jumped back away from it. Henry shot Maria a quick glance before leading the jabberwock past the three of them and toward the enormous door. Helen stepped through a second later, carrying the wheelchair.   
  
By the time Maria got herself comfortably seated again the door was swinging open. A figure appeared in the widening space.   
  
"Wings of a red and black angel!" the figure shouted. "You really do have a jabberwock, I thought the technicians had swallowed a bit too much Creativity."   
  
"Charlie!" Alice exclaimed, running up to throw her arms around him.   
  
"Alice of legend!" he boomed. He held her at arms length. "You haven't aged a day."   
  
"You've aged in reverse," she said. "That _must_ be a Wonderland thing. And I've told you, it's just Alice."   
  
"Just Alice," he repeated dutifully. He looked over her shoulder. "You brought friends!"   
  
"I brought a jabberwock," she reminded him gently, knowing how his memory tended to slip.   
  
"Oh! Yes, of course. Right this way with you." He gestured them past him, clearly giving the jabberwock a wide berth and the evil eye. Maybe he was actually trying to curse it. "We've got a crate set up to take it away."   
  
It was, of course, no easy matter to get the jabberwock into the shrinking room crate trap -- it was not as easily fooled as a person, and the logistics of getting it into the box and Henry out before it closed were quite tricky -- but once it was in it was just minutes until a scarab was flying it away from the palace.   
  
"What are you doing here, anyway?" Alice asked once it was out of the sight.   
  
Charlie's chest puffed out. "King Jack gave me a proper knighthood after you left, said it was the least I deserved for my contribution. I've got estates and everything."   
  
"That's wonderful, Charlie," she said. "Does that mean there are other knights?"   
  
"I'm training them myself," he said proudly. "You could come by the tents and take a peek if you like."   
  
Alice saw Hatter make a face behind Charlie's back and hid a smile. "I wish we could," she said. "But we have to be getting back."   
  
"Not before the feast, surely," Charlie exclaimed.   
  
"Feast?" Helen asked.   
  
"Did I not mention the feast?"   
  
"No," Hatter said. "You didn't."   
  
"Oh. There's a feast," he said. Hatter rolled his eyes. "King Jack would like it if you and your friends would attend."   
  
Alice looked at Helen. "What do you think?"   
  
"I could eat," Henry volunteered.   
  
"Me too," Maria said.   
  
"Excellent," Charlie said. "Come along, I'll find you some place to freshen up."   
  
A few hours later Charlie appeared at the door to the double suite he'd set them up in, ready to escort them to the feast. He was dressed in a brand new suit of armour, all shiny and absolutely white.   
  
"You look wonderful," Alice said, accepting the arm he offered her.   
  
"Not nearly as wonderful as you do, Just Alice."   
  
Hatter harrumphed. "Crazy old man."   
  
She looked over her shoulder at him, dressed up in bright yellows and greens, and arched an eyebrow. "Are you saying I don't look good?"   
  
"Not at all, love," he said smoothly. "You always look good. Even when you've been pulled out of the canal like a drowned rat."   
  
"Thank you so much for reminding me of that," she said, but went along willingly when he pulled her away from Charlie to walk with him.   
  
Helen took her place on Charlie's arm.   
  
"Your eyes betray your age, my lady," he said gravely, nearly walking into a post he was so busy looking at her; she steered him clear of it. "I'd not believe you were an oyster had I not seen the proof you'd come through the Looking Glass."   
  
"That's what they call us here," Alice said before Helen could ask. "You don't want to know why."   
  
Henry and Maria brought up the rear of their procession. Of course, she could have wheeled herself there but it didn't seem worth it to protest.   
  
"That's yours," he said, slipping the stun gun back to her.   
  
She pocketed it. "Thanks."   
  
  
  
The Dining Hall of King Jack's palace was set up in such a way that you almost couldn't see the walls from the table. The "feast" was really more akin to a dinner with the royal family: King Jack Heart himself, of course, his Queen, the former Duchess Thadea, and their three children -- ages two, five, and eight. It was the children that finally clued Alice in that the differences in the passage of time had not been a one time thing.   
  
"How long as it been?" she asked.   
  
"Twelve years this summer," he replied, surprised. "Has it not been as long in your world?"   
  
"You know it hasn't," Hatter snapped. "The way oysters age, you'd have been able to tell just by looking at her. Er." He looked at Alice. "Was that insulting?"   
  
Before she could answer, Helen interrupted. "Do you mean to say that time passes differently on opposite sides of the Looking Glass?"   
  
"It seems to," Alice said. "Last time I was here for three days, but when I got back it had only been a couple of hours."   
  
"Isn't that impossible?" Maria asked.   
  
"Apparently not," Helen said.   
  
"It might be some sort of... adjacent universe," Henry said.   
  
"What's that?"   
  
"You're familiar with parallel universes?"   
  
"Those are the ones where things are just a little bit different, right? Like there's a parallel universe somewhere where Harriet Jones is still Prime Minister."   
  
"Right," he said. "There's a parallel universe for every decision ever made, right down to if a specific electron zigs or zags."   
  
"According to _some_ theories," Helen interjected.   
  
"Yeah, yeah." He waved her off. "Anyway, an adjacent universe is kind of like a parallel universe, except it's just next door. Instead of splitting from the other universes it touches, it's completely different, never been part of another universe."   
  
"That's weird," Maria said, and went back to eating one of the strange and unpronouncable, but very tasty, dishes King Jack's galley had produced.   
  
The conversation ebbed and flowed on. King Jack updated Alice and Hatter on Wonderland current events -- well, mostly Alice. Hatter seemed to take every word Jack uttered as a personal affront, stabbing at his food with more vigour than was perhaps necessary. Which was not to say that he wasn't listening, because he was actually quite interested in current events. Just not Jack.   
  
A few minutes into dessert -- a minty sort of pudding with a crispy crumbly fruit topping -- there was the echo of a door slamming open. A couple of minutes after that the Ten of Clubs approached the king and murmured a few words into his ear. Jack nodded. "Yes, yes, send him in."   
  
The Ten disappeared and a couple minutes later Charlie ran up to the table, clearly out of breath and already babbling. "Your Majesty, I can't apologize enough for the intrustion, I'd never burst in like this is if weren't extremely urgent-"   
  
"Charlie," Jack said. " _Sir_ Charlie. Breathe, and then slowly and clearly, please get to the point."   
  
"Of course," Charlie said fretfully. "Of course. It's the ex-queen."   
  
"My mother?" Jack interrupted. "What about her?"   
  
"She's gone. And so is the Stone."   
  
" _What?"_   
  
He stood up. All the Wonderlanders also leapt to their feet, as did Alice -- the only non-Wonderland with any concept of what that meant.   
  
"The Looking Glass," she asked. "Is it still open?"   
  
"I'm afraid not, dear Alice," he reported mournfully, then looked back to the king. "I have men searching the palace for her, but alas, I fear it is too late."   
  
Jack nodded. "If you've discovered her absence, my mother will be long gone by now."   
  
"Jack-"   
  
"Don't worry, Alice," he said. "We'll find her and get you home. I promise."   
  
"That's great, but I was actually going to ask if there was anything we could do to help."   
  
Hatter looked at her as if helping Jack was something akin to sticking his head in a jabberwock's mouth and having a look around.   
  
Jack looked at her thoughtfully. "If you'd like to assist in the search, feel free. Charlie can tell you what's needed better than I can at this moment. I hate to cut our dinner short, but I'm afraid I must go and see what other damage my mother has caused."   
  
"Of course. We'll help any way we can, right Hatter?"   
  
He glared at her traitorously. "Yeah, fine, all right."   
  
"Excuse me?" Maria asked as Jack and Thadea disappeared from view. "Could someone please tell us what's going on?"   
  
"Right," Hatter said. "Well, the thing is, Jack's mum is kind of... evil."   
  
"Last time I was here I might have helped Jack overthrow her," Alice put in.   
  
"If he'd just beheaded her like she deserved we wouldn't be in this mess," Hatter said.   
  
"I guess he couldn't bring himself to execute his own mother," she snapped. "I know I couldn't."   
  
"Your mother is a lovely person," he said. "The queen, on the other hand-"   
  
"Is still his _mother_ . Are things really so different here that that makes no difference?"   
  
"It makes him a fool."   
  
"Hatter!"   
  
"The woman is mad, Alice, and would kill us all if given the slightest opportunity. And now she's out running around with the Stone of Wonderland. I'm just saying, if he'd just killed her we'd all be better off."   
  
"Yeah, we probably would. And Jack would be a less... honourable person for it."   
  
"Oh, well, so long as Jack keeps his _honour._ "   
  
Maria stared between the two of them, thinking of nothing so much as her parents, before the rows had become too bad to recover from.   
  
"What's the Stone of Wonderland?" she asked bravely, interrupting the brewing spat.   
  
"It's the thing that controls the Looking Glass," Alice said. "It's in a ring. I think the queen loves it more than she loves her own children."   
  
"Exactly," Hatter said. "So it makes no sense for Jack to be so squeamish about killing her."   
  
Alice whipped her head around to glare at him. "If you put her in front of me right now I'd kill her myself, but I would not expect Jack to do it. And that's the last I want to hear about it. Do you understand?"   
  
He glared right back, then rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Charlie, what do you need? For the search," he added, knowing full well what to expect if he didn't.   
  
"More eyes wouldn't go amiss," Charlie said.   
  
"We'll help too," Henry said.   
  
"Yes, anything we can do," Helen agreed. As Charlie lead them off, she looked at Maria. "Maria, stay here. Or at least if you want to look around, go the other way. You're in no shape for a run in with this ex queen."   
  
Maria sighed to herself, but decided to follow Helen's advice. It wouldn't do to disobey her too often - she did want to work for the woman after all.   
  
She wheeled herself out of the room behind them, then turned down another hallway and straight out of the palace.   
  
  
  
King Jack's palace was a huge sprawling thing, only half finished. It was built of white stone and stretched out behind her for as far as the eye could see. She rolled herself away from the palace and toward the tree line. She hadn't gone very far when the ground got too bumpy to continue on in the chair.   
  
So she left it there, testing her leg to make sure she could walk on it. She hopped as best she could, but it wasn't as if she wasn't using the leg at all. She headed into the trees, limping a little but otherwise managing just fine.   
  
She walked until she started to get tired, then sat down against one of the trees, nearly twice as high as those back home, and rested her eyes for a bit. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew the sun was setting, it had fallen to below the treetops and was shining in her eyes. She flailed a bit before remembering where she was, then pushed herself to her feet and headed back in the direction she'd come from.   
  
There was a noise off to her right and she followed it. Sure, it might have been a jabberwock, but she didn't think they would have released it so close to the palace. It didn't even occur to her that it could have been something worse.   
  
Fortunately, it wasn't.   
  
"Clyde?"   
  
" _Maria?_ What are you doing here?"   
  
"Nice to see you, too."   
  
"Well, yeah, obviously." He hugged her. "You look good."   
  
"Liar. I look like I got run over by a train."   
  
"Maybe not that bad," he said, grinning. "But seriously, why are you here?"   
  
"Business. Better question is, what are _you_ doing here? How did you even _get_ here?"   
  
"Oh, I don't like the way that sounds. Please tell me we're just out in the country somewhere. France, maybe."   
  
"Sorry."   
  
He groaned. "Great. Just great. Earth, at least?"   
  
"Debatable."   
  
" _Debatable?_ What kind of answer is that?"   
  
"I don't know. Henry said it was a parallel universe. Or adjacent." She shrugged. "Something like that, anyway."   
  
He rolled his eyes. "Of course it is. Who's Henry?"   
  
"A guy who works at the Sanctuary. We're sort of working together."   
  
"Sort of?"   
  
"It's complicated."   
  
He nodded. "Wait. Sanctuary. I've heard that name before."   
  
"Yeah, it's in Mr. Smith's list of secret organizations that are better than Torchwood."   
  
"Right," he said. "I don't think that's what that list is called."   
  
"Well, no, but it's what it is." Her leg twinged and she grabbed onto Clyde for momentary support. "Crap."   
  
"What? What's wrong?" he asked in alarm. "Are you okay?"   
  
She winced. "Yeah. I think I popped a stitch is all. She _told_ me not to walk on it yet, but I didn't listen. Stupid."   
  
"What happened? She who?"   
  
"Helen Magnus, the woman in charge of the Sanctuary. I got my leg sliced up by a jabberwock and she stitched it back together again. Six stitches." She hiked her pant leg up to show him. "See?"   
  
Clyde refused to look. "No, but I believe you."   
  
"Baby." She let go and swayed on the one foot she was standing on. "Please tell me you're not the only one bumbling around in these woods."   
  
"Hey, I don't bumble," he protested.   
  
"Clyde."   
  
"Sarah Jane and Luke are here too."   
  
"Good. Where?"   
  
"This way."   
  
"What about your friend Rani?"   
  
He shook his head. "Back home, probably wondering where we are. We were supposed to meet her for laser tag hours ago."   
  
"I'm sorry. Maybe you can still make it, I think there's some sort of time thing going on between this world and ours. They said time passes differently on this side."   
  
"Good to know. You're gonna have to tell me all about this jabberwock of yours."   
  
She laughed. " _Never_ work without backup..."   
  
  
  
"Look what I found wandering around in the woods," Clyde said, leading Maria into the makeshift campsite they'd set up.   
  
"Maria!" Luke immediately leapt up to hug her.   
  
"Careful, she'll bleed all over you," Clyde warned jokingly.   
  
"Are you hurt?" Sarah Jane asked.   
  
"Only a little bit." She hitched up her pant leg.   
  
"You should have had this looked at right away."   
  
"It's not even bleeding," she said, "It barely hurts. Anyway, I'll have Helen fix it when I get back to the palace."  She didn't ask how Maria had been injured, or who Helen was, or any of the other questions Maria had been expecting. "But I couldn't just leave you out here in the woods, could I?"   
  
"And we appreciate it," Clyde said. "A lot."   
  
"Palace?" Luke asked.   
  
"Yup," she said.   
  
"You'll never _believe_ where we are."   
  
Maria looked between Luke and Sarah Jane and decided that actually, they just _might._   
  
As they walked back toward the palace she filled them in on her adventure with the jabberwock and what had happened at the so-called feast, as much of it as she could remember. Her story was littered with bits of embellishment from Clyde, who had heard the story before and couldn't help himself, and lots of questions from Luke and Sarah Jane, all of which she did her best to answer. Which is not to say that the answer to half of them wasn't "ask someone else", because it was.   
  
The sun was almost completely below the horizon by the time they got back to the entrance to the palace Maria had exited from.   
  
"It's so _big_ ," Luke said, his neck craned up to look at the ceiling.   
  
"Maria! There you are."   
  
She turned to see Helen and Henry coming down the hallway toward them.   
  
"We found your wheelchair abandoned outside. I told you you shouldn't be walking on your leg just yet."   
  
"Yeah, and I've got the popped stitch to prove it. I've already had the lecture."   
  
Helen frowned at her reproachfully.   
  
"Who are these guys?" Henry asked, jerking his thumb at Maria's friends. While Sarah Jane was introducing them, he lowered his voice. "The doc was pretty worried when you weren't back after a couple hours. She wanted to send one of the search parties after you."   
  
Maria stole a glance at Helen and bit her lip. She hadn't _meant_ to worry anyone. "Remind me to apologize later."   
  
He nodded.   
  
"Right," Helen said when the introductions were over. "I think we can continue this conversation elsewhere. Maria, I'd like to take a look at your leg."   
  
"Okay. Lead the way."   
  
"I don't want you putting any pressure on it until I've had a chance to see it."   
  
"Fine." He looked over at her friends and Luke immediately volunteered to help her. She slung her arm around his shoulder and let him take the weight she would have put on her injured leg. "How's the search going?" she asked as they walked.   
  
"Not good, I'm afraid. The last time we saw Sir Charlie, there had been no sign of her."   
  
"Nothing?"   
  
"Nada," Henry confirmed. "I even sniffed around myself, no trace of her outside the cell. Which, by the way, so much nicer than any prison cell I ever saw back home."   
  
"Did you see a lot of prison cells?" Clyde asked.   
  
"Clyde!"   
  
"Nah, it's cool. It's a legitimate question." He waved Sarah Jane's protest off. "Not everyone exactly likes what we do. And the ones who don't tend to be the nasty sort. We've ended up in our fair share of trouble."   
  
"Mm," Helen said. "Not to mention the times the government convieniently forgets which side we're on."   
  
"And you wanna work for these guys?" Clyde asked Maria.   
  
 "Yes," Maria said firmly. "I bet Sarah Jane was arrested lots of times for doing the right thing, right Sarah Jane?"   
  
Sarah Jane refused to answer that question.   
  
"If you really want to start working for me," Helen said. "You could start by actually following my directions."   
  
"Does that mean I'm hired?"   
  
"I'm still thinking about it."   
  
"She means yes," Henry said.   
  
"Henry."   
  
"What? Tell me I'm wrong."   
  
Helen sighed. "Just keep walking."   
  
Maria grinned brilliantly.


	3. Chapter 3

To absolutely no ones surprise, Hatter is the first one to adjust to their new situation. The minute it becomes clear that retrieving the Stone of Wonderland isn't going to be as quick or easy as they'd hoped, he goes out and commences a non-hostile takeover of one of Jack's new-fangled teahouses. (Okay, so they aren't exactly _Jack's_ teahouses, but he's the King and they'd opened under his rule, and Hatter feels just fine blaming him even if the fact was that the change happened because the Oysters were gone and it was a _good_ thing.) Apparently all it takes are a few words in Dormy's ear about past indiscretions and a promise to forget all about it at some later date.   
  
Within weeks he's moved out of the spacious guest quarters Jack had graciously provided them and into a tiny room behind the teahouse with grass on the floor and an extra-large hammock stretched between two of the walls. In a month he's strutting around Wonderland like he owns the place. It's disconcerting for Alice, watching him slip back into his native habitat so easily, as if he'd never even left.   
  
She finds things to do to occupy her days, to keep herself from thinking about what will happen when they got the Stone back. She starts teaching karate to Charlie's young knights-in-training, spends some time helping out down in the Great Library, and eventually lets Jack and Charlie talk her into collecting leftover emotion teas from the grey market. Her nights she spends in the hammock with Hatter, laying awake long after he goes to sleep, listening to his heart beat in his chest and pretending she's not going to lose him any day now.   
  


Luke disappears into the Great Library almost as soon as he learns it exists. Clyde tries to go with him, but after about two days he's bored out of his skull. Books aren't really his thing, especially not organizing and reorganizing and rereorganizing them for hours on end. The climbing over mountains of them part is cool, but he isn't doing anything other than staring at Luke (and even if Luke doesn't notice, _someone_ will, eventually), so he mumbles something vague about feeling useless and wanders off.   
  
He winds up on the hill overlooking Sir Charlie's training camp, watching kids who look to be about his own age sparring with wooden swords. It's interesting, like an old movie about Camelot or something. Eventually Charlie spies him there and invites him down to join them, and Clyde thinks _why not?_   
  


At Helen's insistance, Maria takes the bottom bunk in the three-tier bunk bed she shares with the boys, and spends the time it takes her leg to heal in the palace. They could be extremely boring days, but she finds ways to keep busy. Comparing notes with Helen, catching up with Sarah Jane, reading basically everything about the Sanctuary that Henry had saved on his hard-drive before the strange adapter he'd designed to allow the battery to draw power from the Wonderland grid fries it all.   
  
She takes to keeping a journal, spending hours writing down observations about people and places, plants and animals, everything she can learn about Wonderland and it's shared history with Earth. She fills up her first notebook (a red spiral notebook that was supposed to be her maths notes; she figures the teacher wouldn't mind, given the circumstances) in about a week, then starts working her way through her other school notebooks and then every scrap of paper she can get her hands on. She's never fancied herself a writer like Clyde and Luke's friend Rani; she looks at her journals as _notes_ , the way a scientist looks at notes about some new ecosystem, or an archaeological dig, or a brand new culture.   
  


When Helen finally takes the stitches out and gives her leave to go exploring, she takes Henry with her. The jabberwock had forged a bond between them that doesn't seem to be fading, and she looks at him as something similar to a brother. She's never had a brother before (she doesn't count Luke and Clyde; she fancies Luke and Clyde is, well, _Clyde_ ). So it's Henry who's with her when she finds the Hole.   
  
It's about a mile all around and so deep that the stone she tosses in still hasn't hit the bottom after ten minutes.   
  
"What the hell?" Henry asks, peering over the edge. He glances at her guiltily, like he wants to apologize for his language but knows better than to try.   
  
"I have no idea."   
  
The bottom of the Hole is completely obscured by fog, although dark shapes bob above it occassionally. She slings her pack to the ground and pulls out a length of rope and a stake. "I'm going down."   
  
" _What?_ Oh, no, no, in _no way_ is that a good idea. Boss'll have your head for sure, and that's _if_ you come back alive."   
  
"Very reassuring, thanks, but I'm not planning on telling her."   
  
"Did you not hear the 'if you come back alive' part?"   
  
"Okay, you go down."   
  
"You have got to be kidding me. One rope, no harness, no idea where the bottom is. Uh-uh, way too dangerous, Maria. We'll have to come back later with better gear."   
  


They don't get to go back later, though. Not long after that, Sarah Jane and Helen commandeer Henry to work on the grid, trying to create a way to use the Looking Glass that doesn't use the Stone, and he's too busy to go with her. Maria forgets about the Hole for a while, and takes to exploring the land east of the palace instead. Eventually, though, it's the only thing within two days walk that she hasn't explored, and she asks Luke about it.   
  
"A what?" Luke asks. He doesn't actually look up from the shelf he's practically leaning through.   
  
"A hole, maybe a mile wide, really deep, a few hours west of here?" Her eyes perform a quick 'checking-Luke-out' motion without any input from her brain. "Read anything about it?"   
  
He pauses to think about it. "Nope. But I'll ask around if you want. If there's anything about it in here, Owl will know."   
  
While Luke is doing his research, and Clyde is learning the fine points of swordplay (pun _absolutely_ intended), Maria draws very realistic recreations of the jabberwock and other wildlife, and a fairly realistic topographical map of the areas she's explored. She spends a few weeks organizing her notes and turning them into a fake travel guide.   
  
Alice teaches her to fly the flamingoes; she's a quick study, and it doesn't take her long to master the art of flight. She even accompanies her on a few trips, and helps her fill in some gaps in her travelogue, but she doesn't really like to go too far from Hatter, not when she's just waiting for him to say goodbye.   
  
  
For Alice, things finally come to a head when she offhandedly mentions how much she's going to miss Hatter when she leaves Wonderland, and he completely freezes in place.   
  
"You... think I want to stay?" Hatter asks, dumbfounded.   
  
"Don't you? I've seen you, since we got here. You're happier, brighter, more alive." She shakes her head. "I don't want to stand in the way of that."   
  
"You don't want to- what?"   
  
"It's okay," she says, in that voice she uses when she was being brave. He loves that voice, but right now it's the last thing he wants to hear. "It's your world, it's only natural-"   
  
" _You're_ my world," he blurts, rather awkwardly. A dozen other ridiculous, unutterably sentimental notions claw at his throat but he can't find the right words to fill the silence. Alice is staring at him in a way he can't decipher and he needs to say something else, anything else to drown out her silence, but he can't make his mouth work properly. His tongue and teeth keep getting in the way of the _words_ . It's a novel experience, to be so completely speechless, so unable to string even a simple sentence together when words have always been his greatest tool. It's also extraordinarily frustrating.   
  
"Hatter?" Alice asks after he's been standing there gaping like a fish for a bit longer than is probably proper.   
  
He snaps his jaw shut. "Sorry. Sorry, I seem to have lost my-"   
  
"Mind?"   
  
"That too. Just- wait a minute, okay?" When she nods slowly he bounds across the room and sticks his head into the cold cabinet, still half filled with leftover teas. He snatches the one he's looking for and waves it in front of her eyes, making sure she can definitely read the label. "Honesty, see? Okay? Here we go." He pops the top off and downs the whole bottle in one go. In retrospect, not really the best idea he's ever had.   
  
"Hatter!" she gasps.   
  
He smacks his lips. "Oh, now, that's better. Nothing like a bit of Honesty to get the words flowing again."   
  
"Isn't that dangerous?"   
  
"Probably. But don't worry, no one's ever died of Honesty poisoning." He grins his most dazzling grin at her and keeps talking, the words trotting out at their usual pace again. "Anyway, I had to do it to make sure you knew I was absolutely one hundred percent telling you the truth when I said I didn't want to stay, because I don't want to stay. Well, and to make words actually come out of my mouth. I was having a bit of a crisis there, if you didn't notice. But mostly the first thing."   
  
That look is on her face again, the one he can't identify. It makes him want to keep talking. Well, that and the Honesty coursing through his veins, but mostly the first thing.   
  
"Your world is terrifyingly small, Alice. Even the things you think are big are tiny compared to what I've known my whole life. I've seen rooms that could eat your skyscrapers for breakfast and still have room left over. And sometimes I think I can feel it collapsing in on itself, getting ready to pop right out of existance and take us right along with it. Sometimes I feel like I'm going blind because the colours don't fit right and I don't know the words to describe what's wrong with them. And some days I'm terrified - really, properly, literally shaking in my boots terrified - that your world is going to swallow me up and I won't recognize the bits it spits back out. But it doesn't matter, cos that's where you are and as soon as I see you all that nails on the chalkboard white noise goes away and I would have never, ever left." He's babbling, all the words tripping over each other in their rush to get out, and Alice is staring at him wide-eyed. He checks to make sure he hasn't grown an extra head, stranger things have happened, after all; he hasn't. He sucks in large gulp of oxygen tries to explain, "I don't think I can stop now, Talking, that is. Not until the Honesty has worked it's way out of my system."   
  
"Why?" she asks. "What happens if you do?"   
  
"I don't know, but it probably won't be pretty." He starts shooting off facts because he can't focus on any one topic long enough get more than a couple sentences out. It's almost as frustrating as being speechless, except that he has no control over it so it's infintely more frightening. "I'm afraid to go out at night because sometimes the shadows eat people and I'm the only one who notices. There are places no one ever goes and no one ever talks about, but they're just as real as where we're standing right now. When I was a wee boy my mum fell down a rabbit hole and after that she was always five minutes late for everything, like she was living out of sync with the rest of the world. My father was a librarian at the Great Library, once the war started he locked himself in the with the books and when the resistance opened the doors again there wasn't a trace of him in the place."   
  
"How did you end up joining the resistance?" Alice asks curiously.   
  
"Not fair," he protests weakly. "Asking questions when I'm all incapacitated like this." But of course the words bubble up anyway and demand to be released. "I'd been dealing teas on the white market since I was old enough to walk, or near enough. When the Queen of Hearts took over there were all sorts of riots and I was just a kid with absentee parents and a mean right hook, I fit right in. Fell in with a crowd my mother would have likely called the wrong one if she'd been aware enough to have an opinion. One day this guy pulls me off the street, right? Easy as you please, just picked me up by the scuff of my neck like a kitten, right out of the middle of a fight. And he sets me up with a little tea shop and a lot of instructions and that was it. I never looked back."   
  
"Who was he?"   
  
"He never told me his name. I haven't even thought about it in years. Anymore questions? No? Back to your regularly scheduled Hatter rambles about everything under the moon, then." His whole body jerks, as if he's been shocked, and he lets out a sound halfway between a moan and a whimper. He grabs her shoulders suddenly, clinging as if she's the only real thing in the world. "Or not. I think things are about to get messy. But listen, because this is so, so important. You need to know. I do, really and truly, have since at least when we pulled you out of Dee and Dum's torture chamber, maybe even before, but I don't want the first time I say it to be in some tea induced stupor. And I don't want you thinking that I didn't say now because it's not true, because it is and I do. Do you understand? Please say you understand."   
  
He looks up at her with such desperation she finds herself nodding even as her brain scrambles to put his fragmented clues together.   
  
"Good." He shoves her away so hard she stumbles. "Stay over there and _do not_ come near me until it's finished."   
  
A few seconds later he spins on his heel and slumps against the wall in what appears to be a seizure. Every time Alice takes a step forward to help him she's met with repeated shouts to stay away and Wonderland cursing the likes of which she's never heard before. Eventually it gets to be too much and she has to look away.   
  
"Okay," Hatter says quietly some time later, and she whirls around to find him kneeling beside a puddle of iridescent sludge. It's a milky, opaque colour she's never seen before and can't quite convince her eyes she's seeing at all, and it has the consistancy of runny silly putty. "Well," he says, standing up and stepping away from the sludge. "That was unpleasant."   
  
"What just happened?" she asks.   
  
"You know the phrase 'word vomit'?"   
  
She starts to nod, then does a double take and moves to put him between her and the sludge, eyeing it warily. "That's... disgusting."   
  
"Yep." He pops the p and grins at her, and suddenly finds himself with a stinging handprint on his cheek. "Um, ow? What was that for?"   
  
"Scaring me half to death. Never do anything like that again." Then she throws her arms around his neck and holds on.   
  
  
  
It doesn't take much to convince Sir Charlie to spare Clyde, once Maria gets the idea to ask. She only has to mention in passing that she needs someone to protect her while she explores, and he starts throwing around words like "lass" and "damsel" and "solemn duty", and _insisting_ that he accompany her on her quest.   
  
"And why do you get to drive?" Clyde complains to first time, climing onto the flamingo behind her.   
  
"Because while you were stabbing vegetables with a sword, I was learning how to actually _fly_ one of these," is her answer.   
  
"So," Maria says, poking at the campfire after a day of uneventful surveying. "Does Luke know you fancy him?"   
  
" _What?_ " Clyde's head shoots up to stare at her. "I don't know what you're..." He trails off at the looks she's giving him. "You're not buying that, are you?"   
  
"Nope."   
  
He sighs. "Okay, how'd you know?"   
  
"You mean other than by looking at you?"   
  
"Shut up."   
  
She rolls her eyes. "You guys are like my best friends. I can tell. Why not?"   
  
"He's Luke. It's... weird. What am I even supposed to say? Anyway, we both know he fancies you. Can we talk about something else?"   
  
"Fine," she says, eyeing him in a way that suggests a return to the subject later.   
  
But the very next day, before she even has a chance to consider what she'll say to him, Luke finds the information about the Hole.   
  
"It goes straight through to the other side of the world," he says excitedly. "All the way to some sort of valley surrounded by mountains that you can't get to from anywhere else in Wonderland."   
  
"Nowhere?"   
  
"That's what it says. What's really cool is that there's a spot about halfway down the hole where gravity reverses, so if you don't have a flying machine or a rope tied on both ends you can get stuck sort of bouncing back and forth between the two sides-"   
  
"I know what happened to the ex queen," Maria interrupts. "I know why no one can find her."   
  
"You think she went through the Hole?" Clyde asks.   
  
"It explains why no one can find her even though she didn't get that much of a head start." She jumps up, with Clyde right on her heels. "Thanks, Luke!"   
  
"Wait, where are you doing?"   
  
"Where do you think?" Clyde calls over his shoulder.   
  
  
  
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Clyde asks when they reach the flamingo. It's a long enough walk to have given common sense time to sink in. "What if the Queen really is there?"   
  
"I have a stunner and you have a sword. Luke knows where we're going, and I don't plan on fighting her if we find her. We'll come right back and get security. Hold on tight, you don't want to fall off when gravity flips."   
  
At first, when she tips the flamingo into the Hole, it's like a rollar coaster, nearly a straight plunge into what she and Henry had first thought was fog but which turns out to be more like a layer of cloud. It tears the breath from their lungs, sending their internal organs up to the vicinity of their throats. After a couple of minutes they get used to it and begin to take in their surroundings.   
  
Things that had been dropped into the hole shoot by their heads, some of it flying up toward them and some dropping back toward the center. Rocks, coins, confused flightless animals, you name it and it's in there - like a giant tumbling lost and found.   
  
There isn't any warning before they hit the midway point. One second they're falling and the next they're flying.   
  
For a disconcerting couple of minutes, Maria can't tell up from down. Fortunately, momentum keeps them going until she can right the flamingo and soon they're rising out of the Hole into a circle of trees that isn't the one they started in. Maria circles the Hole twice, slowing the flamingo, then takes off in a typical survey pattern.   
  
They find nothing during the day, but a sound in the night wakes Maria, not long after she's gotten to sleep. She reaches over and nudges Clyde without sitting up.   
  
"Clyde, wake up."   
  
"What?" he mumbles sleepily.   
  
"Don't move. I hear something." She rolls over and holds the stunner in front of her as she shuffles toward the noise. "Get out your sword."   
  
"While not moving?" he asks smartly. She rolls her eyes. "What is it?"   
  
"I'm not sure yet."   
  
"Well, well, well, what have we here?"   
  
Maria freezes, then raises her eyes. "Oh, hello."   
  
"Hello, child. Do you know who I am?"   
  
She bristles at being called 'child', but tries not to show it. "The... Queen of Hearts?" she offers, making her voice sound less certain than she is.   
  
"Very good. And what, pray tell, are you doing here?"   
  
"Looking for you," Clyde says. A quick glance over her shoulder tells Maria that he's standing and pointing his sword at her. It looks like it would be a pretty impressive stance if he weren't only half-awake and clearly faking half his courage. It's still a good bluff. "You took something that doesn't belong to you."   
  
"Oh, you mean this?" She flourishes her hand in front of her, blatantly displaying the Stone of Wonderland. "On the contrary. This never belonged to anyone but me."   
  
Maria backs away slowly while the ex Queen is distracted by Clyde. Something growls in a nearby bush as she gets close to it, red-gold eyes shining out at her. She jumps away from it.   
  
"I see you've met my hounds," the ex Queen says idly. She motions with her fingers and the hounds emerge from the darkness. Each one of them has two heads, and rough gray fur that looks almost scaly. Their pointed teeth drip saliva onto the ground, and they don't make any noise at all as they move. "Eat them."   
  
  
  
"Run faster!" Maria shouts.   
  
Clyde doesn't bother to answer her, focusing instead on staying ahead of the ex Queen and her hounds. Something snaps at his ankle and he finds a burst of extra speed.   
  
Maria lunges forward and leaps onto the back of the flamingo.   
  
"What are you doing?" Clyde screams.   
  
"Something really dumb! Either hop on or stay out of the way!"   
  
He doesn't even think about it before he jumps on behind her.   
  
"Hold on tight!" She spins the flamingo in midair and speeds back toward the pursuit. "Stunner's in my pocket, can you get it?"   
  
"This is why we shouldn't have come by ourselves!" He fumbles in her pocket and pulls the stunner out. "Got it."   
  
She glances down, then back at the air in front of her and performs another pivot, frustrating the hound that was leaping at them. "Turn it the other way, then squeeze to shoot."   
  
It takes three circles to take out all the hounds. Maria isn't sure whether they're stunned or fried, and she doesn't care to find out.   
  
"Now for the Queen," she mutters.   
  
"What? Maria!"   
  
"She knows we know she's here, if we leave her she might find a way to escape. Don't tell me you don't want to bring her in." She ignores whatever response he makes, and does a sharp turn nearly directly over the ex Queen's head. Clyde clings to her back while she executes a series of simple but dangerous manuevers and then rams the ex Queen directly into the Hole.   
  
The ex Queen hangs onto the front of the flamingo for a precarious moment before Maria manages to shake her off, then she plummets into the Hole. Maria hovers above it for long enough to watch her bob up and down through the fog a couple times, then brings the flamingo back down on the ground.   
  
"That was awesome," Clyde says finally.   
  
"It was pretty cool, wasn't it?" She takes the stunner from him and puts it back in her pocket. "She'll keep if you want to go back to camp and sleep until morning."   
  
"Are you kidding? I'm way too pumped up to sleep now."   
  
They reach the palace in record time, the flamingo skidding to a stop as it finally runs out of fuel and tenacity. Clyde and Maria manage to get away from it before it tips over completely sideways.   
  
"Are you all right?" the Club on guard duty asks.   
  
"We found the ex Queen," Maria says, running low on adrenaline. "She's in the Hole. Tell the King. We're going to bed, we'll debrief in the morning."   
  
  
  
Luke jumps up as soon as the door opens and starts babbling, his voice oozing concern. Maria's brain doesn't properly process any of the words, just the intent, and she mumbles something that's meant to be reassuring in response. Luke hugs Clyde tightly, then turns to hug her just as tightly.   
  
Somewhere in the middle of that hug, she realizes how absolutely silly it is that he doesn't know she fancies him. Back home they live on opposite sides of the world, if he doesn't fancy her back they'll have space to get over it.   
  
"I-" She holds on tighter, can't actually make herself say the words 'I fancy you'. Instead she says, "I want to kiss you."   
  
Luke stares at her like he hasn't quite understood. "Is it because you almost died?"   
  
"No."   
  
"Oh," he says. Then he nods. "Okay."   
  
She ignores the part of her brain screaming that she needs sleep and this is a terrible idea, and lets herself kiss him as best she can. Out the corner of her eye she sees Clyde turn away so he won't see them and her heart breaks because it isn't fair, so she pulls away.   
  
"Did I do something wrong?" Luke asks worriedly.   
  
She smoothes his cheek, reassuringly. "You did everything right." She hesitates, feels the air change like a premonition, sees the second Clyde realises what she's about to say and starts internally freaking out. "Clyde wants to kiss you, too."   
  
Luke blinks in confusion - the sort of happy confusion that precedes things like 'wonder' and 'awe'. "Really?" he asks, looking between the two of them like he doesn't know who he should be asking.   
  
"It's okay," she says, not quite sure which one of them she's talking to. "It's okay."   
  
Luke moves away from her, toward Clyde; she diverts her eyes for a second to give them some privacy, and when she looks again Clyde is staring like he's been given the whole world.   
  
She doesn't know what breaks that deeply emotional moment, but one second they're all looking at each other like they've just worked out how the future works (even though they've not worked out anything at all; that will come later), and the next they're laughing, happy and tired, and falling asleep nearly before they hit the ground, not one of them making it to the bunkbeds.   
  
When she wakes up the next morning she thinks it's a dream until she realises she's leaning against Luke leaning against Clyde, all three of them sprawled haphazardly across the floor.   
  


After she and Clyde debrief with King Jack, Sarah Jane, and Helen, (almost as harrowing an experience as taking down the ex Queen), it takes some time to unentrench themselves from the lives they've been building for the last year.   
  
It takes Henry and Sarah Jane almost as long to reverse the changes that they'd made to the Looking Glass as it had to make them. Whenever anyone complains, though, they take the time to carefully explain to that not reversing the changes could result in a nasty surprise when King Jack turns the Looking Glass on - a nasty surprise like eviseration.   
  
Somehow, during the wait, Alice and Hatter put together a half-fancy celebration that Maria realises, about halfway through, is the Wonderland equivalent of a wedding. Due to his bravery and his role in helping to capture the ex Queen, Clyde is knighted almost as soon as it can be arranged, the first Oyster to ever be granted that honour.   
  
Luke and Maria have the easiest time separating themselves. Maria has only ever wandered the countryside on her own or with the other Oysters; she doesn't have any Wonderlander friends to say goodbye to. Luke has friends in the Library, but they aren't the sort of friends you talk to; they're the sort of friends you sort books in silence with. He says goodbye, but he doubts they notice or will even remember he was there. Luke and Maria spend most of their time together - on the other side of the Looking Glass they have an ocean between them, it's only fair.   
  
They leave Wonderland with very little fanfare. King Jack offers them a feast and an escort, but Helen and Sarah Jane are quick to decline. The Looking Glass has been tried and tested nearly to exhaustion by now, and they just want to get home. They cross in the morning, just after breakfast, and emerge five days after they left.   
  
Helen flies Sarah Jane, Luke, and Clyde back to London just in time for Rani to start worrying about them. She was a bit more worried about herself during the 456 debacle. Clyde will never know how lucky he is that it takes her more than a week to find out about him and Luke (probably because of how obvious he and Maria are, what with all their videochatting kissyfaces), and in the end, all is well.


End file.
